{"id":1542,"date":"2015-10-26T10:17:50","date_gmt":"2015-10-26T14:17:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/digital.hbs.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/moleskine-created-a-molescheme-through-failed-crowdsourcing-effort\/"},"modified":"2015-10-26T10:17:50","modified_gmt":"2015-10-26T14:17:50","slug":"moleskine-created-a-molescheme-through-failed-crowdsourcing-effort","status":"publish","type":"hck-submission","link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/moleskine-created-a-molescheme-through-failed-crowdsourcing-effort\/","title":{"rendered":"Moleskine created a \u201cMolescheme\u201d through failed crowdsourcing effort"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Moleskine is the maker of treasured notebooks for artists, writers, and designers alike that are modeled after those used by greats like Ernest Hemingway and Vincent Van Gogh. The brand has become synonymous with simplicity, nostalgia and design excellence. Over time, a Moleskine notebook becomes an artist\u2019s priceless possession, holding prized sketches, notes, and song lyrics.\u00a0 The company\u2019s customer base is frenetic about the brand, often refusing to purchase other mainstream notebooks.<\/p>\n<p>However, in 2011, Moleskine needed to redesign it\u2019s logo for its online platform, Moleskinery.\u00a0 Naturally, the company looked to harness the loyalty and talent of its artistic and design-focused customer base by crowdsourcing the new logo design.\u00a0 Unfortunately, their failed crowdsourcing attempt created unforeseen backlash and public animosity amongst their loyal customer base.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The failed contest<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The bounds of the contest were fairly simple.\u00a0 In late 2011, Moleskin announced their crowdsourcing event to create a new logo for Moleskinery.\u00a0 Anyone was allowed to participate, and the selected winner would receive a 7,000 euro reward.\u00a0 In addition, Moleskine would retain the IP for all submitted design ideas.<\/p>\n<p>The backlash to the event was quick and fierce.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/10\/facebook-capture.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1541\" src=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/10\/facebook-capture-224x300.png\" alt=\"facebook capture\" width=\"224\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/10\/facebook-capture-224x300.png 224w, https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/10\/facebook-capture-448x600.png 448w, https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2015\/10\/facebook-capture.png 541w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 224px) 100vw, 224px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Overall, the crowdsourcing event failed because it turned an otherwise remarkably loyal fan base against the company, for the two basic below reasons:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Failure to fully think through the implications for the customer base.<\/em> What Moleskine failed to realize is that crowdsourcing is a touchy subject for designers. Rather than paying designers for their work, Moleskine, in their opinion, was going to receive a plethora of new, creative ideas for free.\u00a0 Through crowdsourcing, Moleskine would ask many people to do the creative work, find the idea they liked best, and only pay that designer. No other designers were rewarded, and all designers lost their IP.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This left the impression that Moleskine was devaluing the designer, which is the exact community that had dogmatically supported the rise of \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 the brand.\u00a0 The choice of crowdsourcing for logo development created a sentiment of betrayal and distrust amongst the fan base.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>Failure to admit wrongdoing.<\/em> Moleskine\u2019s first response to the outcry on Facebook was defensive and failed to admit that they were wrong.\u00a0 Their response included statements such as \u201cother companies are doing it\u201d and \u201cyou are free not to enter\u201d the competition. Only on their second response did the company admit that crowdsourcing may not have been the correct way to engage their community in the logo design process and further apologized for their insensitive first response.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I believe that Moleskine should not have launched a crowdsourcing campaign in this fashion.\u00a0 The company should have recognized that retaining the IP, in particular, would make the campaign feel highly speculative to their community.\u00a0 While I don\u2019t know that I would blindly recommend crowdsourcing to a company like Moleskine in the future, I would recommend that they allow any designer that submits a design not selected as the winner to maintain the IP.<\/p>\n<p>Sources: newkind.com, yannigrowth.com, writerunderground.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 2011 Moleskine needed to redesign it\u2019s logo for its online platform, Moleskinery.  Naturally, the company looked to harness the loyalty of its artistic and design-focused customer base by crowdsourcing the new logo design.  Unfortunately, their failed crowdsourcing attempt created unforeseen backlash and public animosity amongst their loyal customer base.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":1543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","categories":[682,681,680],"class_list":["post-1542","hck-submission","type-hck-submission","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-failed-crowdsourcing","category-moleskine","category-power-of-the-community"],"connected_submission_link":"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/assignment\/leveraging-the-collective-intelligence-and-effort-of-digital-crowds\/","yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Moleskine created a \u201cMolescheme\u201d through failed crowdsourcing effort - Digital Innovation and Transformation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/d3.harvard.edu\/platform-digit\/submission\/moleskine-created-a-molescheme-through-failed-crowdsourcing-effort\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Moleskine created a \u201cMolescheme\u201d through failed crowdsourcing effort - Digital Innovation and Transformation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In 2011 Moleskine needed to redesign it\u2019s logo for its online platform, Moleskinery. 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